กิเลส กรรม วิบาก ต่างกันอย่างไร และลดกิเลสช่วยลดวิบากได้จริงหรือไม่What's the Difference Between Defilement, Karma, and Karmic Result — and Does Reducing Defilement Really Help?

Someone asked how defilement, karma, and karmic result differ, how the three relate to one another, which arises first, and whether reducing defilement can help us create better new karma and lessen the effect of old karmic results. Phra Ajarn answered:

The Natural Cycle: Matter, Wave, Energy

Defilement, karma, and karmic result are all part of a natural cycle of arising. Take, for example, the neutral, indeterminate cycle of matter, wave, and energy. Matter is form; a wave is like software or data — a current that needs a medium to travel through — and energy flows through that medium. The wave itself is what gives rise to energy, serving as the channel energy flows along, whether it's a wave traveling down a rope or any other kind of wave. Scientists have studied and worked out the relationships between matter, wave, and energy thoroughly, building many equations around this cycle. Science concludes that the whole universe consists of only these three things — nothing more.

This actually agrees with Buddhism, though the Buddha taught something far more detailed. He said nature has three categories: wholesome phenomena, unwholesome phenomena, and indeterminate phenomena. What science has discovered — matter, wave, energy — belongs only to the indeterminate category.

The Wholesome Cycle: Mind, Mental Factors, Form, Nibbana

The wholesome side consists of form, mental factors, and nibbana — what we know as mind (citta), mental factors (cetasika), form (rūpa), and Nibbāna. Mind and mental factors are like the wave; form is like matter, something tangible; and nibbana is the energy that flows in from Nibbāna itself. When we generate wholesome causes, that wholesomeness draws energy to flow in — energy only flows when wholesomeness has arisen. The wave is the channel energy travels through; once energy flows in, it moves form and matter, and form and matter in turn give rise to more waves. It turns endlessly, without stop.

The Unwholesome Cycle: Defilement, Karma, Karmic Result

The unwholesome side of nature works the same way. Defilement and karma are like the wave — what causes the energy that is karmic result to arise. Defilement stirs up karma, which is action; when an action is driven by defilement, it produces a karmic result. So defilement, karma, and karmic result form the cycle of the unwholesome side. Karmic result is the fruit of an action; if no wave — no action — arises, there is no karmic result to speak of. And once karmic result arises, it in turn gives rise to more defilement. Defilement produces karma, karma produces karmic result, karmic result produces defilement — round and round it goes. Defilement binds people's hearts, driving them to act; the action draws in demerit, which forms into karmic result; and that karmic result becomes the condition for defilement to arise again. It never ends — this is the cycle of the unwholesome.

Which Comes First — and Does Reducing Defilement Really Help?

As for which comes first, it's like the chicken and the egg — did the chicken come before the egg, or the egg before the chicken? It's hard to say, because it has already become a closed cycle.

If we can reduce our defilements, that genuinely helps us create better new karma, and it genuinely helps lessen the effect of old karmic results too. But karmic result itself, once it exists, cannot be avoided — it is a fruit we must receive, and it is what gives rise to the law of karma. Defilement is the tool of the unwholesome side, forcing the decisions of people and beings, driving them to create karma through body, speech, and mind. Craving and defilement are the cause of suffering, working their way in through thought, speech, and action.

How Karmic Result Forms: From Flowing Demerit to the Orb of Karmic Result

When the unwholesome side of nature manages to take hold, it overlays itself onto body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, making thoughts and feelings appear that force people and beings to speak and act accordingly. If it is on the side of demerit, what follows is unfitting. Even as it shapes us through thought, karmic result is arising the whole time — demerit keeps flowing in, until it reaches its full measure. Once full, it has the force to compel unfitting speech and action — even though we know full well what is right and wrong, we cannot help ourselves, because the demerit drawn in has built up enough to overpower us. Only after we've already acted does the unwholesome state that had taken hold leave — and only then do we feel regret. But by then it is already too late.

The karmic result that arises is simply the demerit that has flowed in as the fruit of an action. Once it flows in to completion, it seals into what could be called an “orb of demerit” — made up of defilement, a stain that is a source of trouble and obstruction, and of the state of suffering, a condition that must be endured though it is hard to endure. At its center sits “ruin” — a solid black orb, darker still than the orb of demerit around it — whose purpose is to destroy blessings: physical form, wealth, virtue, retinue, gain, honor, praise, happiness, and even the path, fruit, and Nibbāna. This completed orb of demerit is called the “orb of karmic result”. It is kept within one's field of inner qualities, waiting to be placed somewhere on the timeline of life — whether in this life soon to come or a far-off life yet ahead.

Defilement, then, is simply the tool of the unwholesome side; karma is what we find ourselves compelled to do.